WASHINGTON, June 23, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft is on track to begin the first extended visit to a large asteroid. The mission expects to go into orbit around Vesta on July 16 and begin gathering science data in early August.

WASHINGTON, June 13, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Scientists working with NASA's Dawn spacecraft have created a new video showing the giant asteroid Vesta as the spacecraft approaches this unexplored world in the main asteroid belt.

NASA has selected three science investigations for a potential 2016 mission that would look at Mars' interior for the first time; study an extraterrestrial ocean on one of Saturn's moons; and study in unprecedented detail the surface of a comet's nucleus.

LOS ANGELES, April 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Twelve years after a nuclear war, the world has turned into an uninhabitable wasteland with mutant insects and humanity holding onto survival in outposts hidden from the poisonous air and killer Centipedes.

Asteroid -- An asteroid, also called a minor planet or planetoid, is a member of a group of small, planet-like bodies that are part of our solar system. They are believed to be remnants of the interstellar clouds, nebula, that were not incorporated into planets during the formation of the solar system.
The largest asteroid in the inner solar system is Ceres with a diameter of 1003 km. It also was the first to be discovered, by Giuseppe Piazzi on January 1, 1801. Nowadays, over 9000...

Asteroid Belt -- The Asteroid belt is a region of the solar system falling roughly between the planets Mars and Jupiter where the greatest concentration of asteroid orbits can be found.
It is believed that, during the first million years of the solar system history, planets formed by accretion of planetesimals. Ripetute collisions led to the familiar rocky planets and to the gas giant's cores.
However, in this zone of the system the strong gravity of Jupiter inhibited the final stages...

Near-Earth Asteroid -- Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) are asteroids whose orbit intersects Earth's orbit and which may therefore pose a collision danger, as well as being most easily accessible for spacecraft from Earth.
In fact, some near-Earth asteroids can be reached with much less Î”V than the Moon. The most famous near-Earth asteroid is 433 Eros that was visited by NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous probe.
A few hundred such near-Earth asteroids are known, ranging in size up...